text: Mass spectrometry (MS) can identify proteins and their relative levels, hence it can be used to study protein expression. When used in combination with affinity purification, mass spectrometry (AP/MS) can be used to study protein complexes, that is, which proteins interact with one another in complexes and in which ratios. In order to purify protein complexes, usually a "bait" protein is tagged with a specific protein or peptide that can be used to pull out the complex from a complex mix. The purification is usually done using an antibody or a compound that binds to the fusion part. The proteins are then digested into short peptide fragments and mass spectrometry is used to identify the proteins based on the mass-to-charge ratios of those fragments.